


Half a Touch

by TerresDeBrume



Series: Compromises [2]
Category: Supernatural, X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Childbirth, Children, Crossover, Crossover Pairing, F/M, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, Present Tense, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-16
Updated: 2011-06-16
Packaged: 2017-10-20 11:28:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being what she is, it's obvious Marie will have to find unconventional ways to touch her child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Half a Touch

**Author's Note:**

> Missing scene from "If it's not Happy, at least it's not Sad either."
> 
> You don't *have* to read that fic to undestand what Half a Touch stands for, but it might help you contextualize =)

John looks tiny, almost disappearing in the blue-grey blanket provided by the hospital.

 

oooooooooooo

 

The nurses try to press him to her chest, put him in her arm, but she won’t have him, she can’t, and she demands a bottle and a nurse with more force than strictly necessary when someone suggests that the baby should be fed.

 

oooooooooooo

 

They look disapproving, like she’s being an awful mother by refusing to touch her son, her firstborn, but she really couldn’t care less, and she keeps insisting they don’t put him in her arms, knowing it’s safer for him.

 

How she wishes the Cure could have held long enough for her to touch that soft mop of hair, long enough for her to kiss that tiny, tiny forehead, to run a finger along those chubby hands.

 

She sheds tears.

 

oooooooooooo

 

(But then she remembers how she once thought she’d never have a baby, and she realizes it’s not so bad.)

 

oooooooooooo

 

Sam comes to visit her on the second day, covered in grime and ashes, and reeking of sewer with enough force to cause John to twitch in his little crib. Marie ignores the nurses’ stares and gestures her husband –and how she loves that word- to her side, where he sits gingerly, his oversized body practically folded in four against her, too long hair brushing against her forehead, punches-swollen lips soft on her cheek.

 

“Hey,” she murmurs, eyes still wet.

“Hey,” he replies, smiling at the greeting she picked up from him. “Marie, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”

“Well I tried to phone the Wendigo, but it wouldn’t pick up.”

“You spend too much time with Dean.”

 

Marie chuckles and points to the crib.

 

“He’s over here. Sleeping.” She turns slightly to Sam as he tugs the crib closer to the bed. “Don’t you want to hold him?”

“One question first,” he says, soft and rough with fatigue as he drinks his baby’s looks, “what’s his name?”

“John.”

 

He smiles that secret, small smile, like he can’t let himself smile too bright in case someone notices it and tries to wipe it right off his face.

 

(Given their lives, she really, _really_ can’t blame him.)

 

oooooooooooo

 

“Hey,” Sam greets when he comes back the next morning, showered and clean-shaven, but still swollen from his last Hunt. “Dean says he’ll be visiting soon.”

“Before or after he’s a father?”

 

Sam chuckles, soft and heartfelt, and it’s good to hear him being happy like that, but she’s got a question she needs to ask, even if she fears it might stop the smiling.

 

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice you never touched him?”

“No,” Sam says, and she’s surprised to see his smile grow wider. “I’ve brought you a gift.”

 

She stares at him, puzzled, when he drops a small bag on her laps.

 

oooooooooooo

 

She opens the satchel and, for a moment, she’s confused as to what exactly this gift is.

 

She cries when she understands.

 

oooooooooooo

 

“Have I mentioned this is the _best damn present_ _ever_?”

“You watch your mouth in front of my son, woman!”

“Jerk.”

“Bitch.”

“Marry me again?”

“Anything for the woman who bore my child.”

 

oooooooooooo

 

Whenever other kids are asked to tell what their first memory is, what is their most ancient souvenir, they often tell about a song, some kind of lullaby they were sung to put them to sleep. Sometimes it’s a blanket, or a scent –scents are powerful things, and many kids cling to them, hard.

 

(John Winchester the second knows scents, too. Rotten eggs, mostly, the one thing he smells most often on his father and uncle, but that’s not the earliest thing he remembers.)

 

 

oooooooooooo

 

“I wanted you to be _first_ Marie. You’re his mother. You should _always_ be first.”

 

oooooooooooo

 

Crazy as it sounds, all his life, John will swear that, sometimes, he dreams about a greenish white ceiling in a white room, and a pretty lady with white bangs at the front of her dark hair, laying a white silken scarf over his face.

 

Then she just presses their foreheads together.

 

It’s only half a touch, and the scarf feels wet, but she’s smiling, and John feels loved.

 

Safe.

 

Happy.

 

And all his life, he knows this woman will always come irrevocably _first._


End file.
